“Lachlan!” Quinn yells out.
“Coming!” Uncertain if this is it, I check her other nightstand just to be sure, and when I only find a couple baby photos of Kinsley in the drawer, I figure this must be it.
“Hey, is everything okay?” Willow asks, stepping out of her room.
“Kinsley isn’t feeling well,” I tell her, walking toward Kinsley’s room. “Quinn is in there with her.”
“Oh, no! Let us know if she needs anything.”
“Will do.”
When I get inside Kinsley’s room, Quinn is removing her soiled clothes. “Here ya go.” I hand her the thermometer. “I couldn’t get it to turn on.” I shrug. “Thermometers have gotten a whole lot more techy since I was a kid.”
Quinn laughs and turns to grab it. When she spots it in my hand, she jumps to her feet, her entire face glowing red. “Oh my God!” she shrieks. “That’s…that’s not a thermometer.” She snatches it from my hand. “I said the top drawer in the kitchen, not my bedroom!”
“Umm…” I say, having no idea why she’s freaking out right now. “You didn’t specify, actually. I just assumed.” And then it hits me. Why is she blushing like I just walked in on her…
“What is that thing?” I ask, trying to get another look at it.
“Can you just go grab the thermometer, please? I’m going to get Kinsley bathed, and I need to change her sheets.”
“Okay, want me to put that back?” I nod toward the not-thermometer.
“No!” she screeches. “I will.”
Doing as she says, I find the correct thermometer, and while I can now recognize it as the actual thermometer, the item I grabbed is very similar in size and shape. The only major differences are the color and there’s a screen on this one. After I give Quinn the correct thermometer, I grab Kinsley’s soiled clothes and sheets and bring them down to the washer and turn it on. Then, I find the linen closet and locate some fresh sheets so I can make her bed. By the time I’m done, Kinsley and Quinn are coming back into her room.
“How you feeling?” I ask Kinsley who tries, and fails, to smile.
“I don’t feel so well,” she admits. “Can I go back to sleep, Mommy?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in my bed?” Quinn asks.
“You know I like my own bed.” Kinsley pouts.
“I know,” Quinn tells her. “Here’s the trash can in case you wake up again, and if you need me, just call out and I’ll come running.”
“Okay.” Kinsley lies down and Quinn gives her a kiss on her cheek. “Will I able to go to school Monday?”
“Probably not,” Quinn says with a frown. “But we’ll see.”
“Fine.” Kinsley huffs and rolls over.
“Night, Mini-Q,” I say. She rolls back over and gives me a small smile.
“Night, Lach.”
When we step out of her room, Quinn walks next door to her room, and I follow. “Thank you for changing her bed,” she says, grabbing her shirt and pulling it over her head. “I just need to change real quick. I don’t know if any throw up got on me, but just in case.” She sticks her tongue out and scrunches her nose.
“Not a fan?” I laugh.
“I hate throw up. Blood, I can handle just fine. But throw up.” She mock shivers, then pulls a new shirt over her head. “I can’t handle it, like at all.”
“I should probably get going,” I tell her, and she nods.
“Okay.” She cuts across the room and encircles her arms around my neck. “Seriously, thank you.” She presses her mouth to mine. “Where did you put the sheets? I need to throw them in the washer.”
“Already in there,” I say, giving her another kiss.
“Mmm.” She moans. “A man who does well under pressure, changes puked-on sheets without being asked, and puts them in the washer. I feel like I’ve won the lottery.” She giggles, and the sound goes straight to my chest.
“Speaking of which, what was that thermometer-looking thing I gave you by mistake?” When her cheeks stain pink again, my mind goes straight to the gutter. “Wait a second!” I laugh, removing her arms from around my neck and walking over to the nightstand.
“It’s not in there!” she exclaims. “I left it in the bathroom.”
“Was that… a vibrator?”
“Lachlan, stop!” she screeches, and I laugh harder.
“I’ve seen vibrators before and none of them looked like that. That was like some high-tech shit.”
“It’s a clitoral stimulator,” she says matter-of-factly. When my lips upturn into a grin, she huffs. “When you’re a single mom, and your pussy may as well be a graveyard, you have to bring in the big guns.”
“A graveyard?” I ask, slightly turned on that she just said pussy.
“You know…because it hasn’t gotten any action in so long, it might as well be dead.”
I bark out a laugh at that, shaking my head. “You’re fucking nuts.” Then I think of something. “Have you used it since we started…” I waggle my eyebrows.